Probably the number one mst hated/I dislike quests are "collect 10 bear asses" quests that don't really contribute to anything and are kind of just one-offs.
I don't mind chill grinding for hours - either solo or as part of a group - but "go collect 10 butts so I can...make some stew and send you on your way" is kinda...meh. It has no connection to the game world to go get some of a quest item and bring them to a questgiver to do the crafting then get on your way.
...BUT...
I make an exception here in a way: I don't mind "collect 10 bear flanks" where the flanks ARE NOT QUEST ITEMS but can be used for cooking. I remember there being some quest in WoW where you have to give the quest giver 10 of a cooking reagent, then they give you the recipe so you can cook that meal. The reagent is a common drop from that mob type (spider legs or emu thigh or something), which you may already have a stack of, but which you can use (once you learn the recipe) to cook the food yourself.
This, to me, works with immersion, since you're actually able to make the meal itself, and it shows that the meal actually EXISTS in the game world. Somehow, that adds to immersion. There's also a chance you've already got some (or all) of the items just from killing mobs before you even got to that quest giver.
Now, don't get me wrong, having some unique quest items for powerful spells or plot/story/lore stuff is fine, becuase it makes sense that those things might be beyond my character. Maybe there's a demon portal opening and the only way to shut it is using several reagents from powerful demon channlers nearby and giving them to the quest giver who has studied portal and teleportation spells for years and so can reverse engineer the spell to close it, and it's REASONABLE that my character might not be able to do that.
...but bear asses for a stew that doesn't exist in the game as a cooking recipie just feels like "So...why can't I make this myself? Why is this a special quest item instead of a common drop that I can use in cooking myself?"
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It's a LITTLE change, but a BIG difference between a mindless "gather 10 X" quest that feels like it has no real connection to the world and a quest to gather something that seems to exist (outside of that quest) in the world and has use (outside of that quest) in the world. The latter aids immersion and makes the quest feel like it BELONGS in the world and is PART of the world.
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Now...maybe I'm alone in this? Or maybe some of you also feel the same way?
What are other quest design things that you guys can think of that are a difference between a quest feeling like part of the world and being cool to do vs one that just feels slapped on and meaningless?
How much vendor trash can you eat? (how much steak can you eat?)
I think this idea, generalized and expanded, can also tie into mudflation. Should there even be vendor trash? or should most items serve a purpose as in the example above. Some may not want to do the bear-butt task and sell those bear-butts to a vendor but those who have, can see those same butts on the vendor and make the stat food. Bonus. Making both the raw and crafted items non-tradeable and vendor only would help limit the money supply and by extension, mudflation. The same would apply to whiskers, wings, teeth, etc. The benefit of rusty weapons and a sharpening stone in a forge making them tarnished and providing low level skill up/recipe in smithing= reward cycle. It would also eliminate any thought of having a goal to sell crafted stuff to other players and instead force focus on the game itself, rather than self-imposed frustration at not being able to sell their stuff and eliminate the discomfort of having a ruby encrusted veil thrust upon you by a stranger with a hard pitch to buy it because it is "good" as well as the envy of having bought the ruby encrusted veil only to discover some newb having a much better item at a much younger level from simply doing a quest- with friends- where she was the only beneficieary.
Would I suffer through getting 10 bear-butts just to I can make bear-butt pie? yes. Would I always slay a few bears if I was in the area to have some bear-butts on hand? probably. (and in so doing, would that serednipitously improve the chances for named spawns for those appropriate levels in the area as I moved on?) What would be great ? if I found another better stat recipe later on for blood sausage that needed prepared bear-butts as an ingredient. Even better? finding some on a merchant in the local area to supplement the ones I killed for.
"if I found another better stat recipe later on for blood sausage that needed prepared bear-butts as an ingredient. Even better?"
I've always been a fan of higher level recipes using lower level reagents and/or products in their crafting. It keeps the lower level stuff in demand. FFXIV does this with its crafting, and WoW did this in Vanilla (and to a point each expansion for a while) with Skinning/Leatherworking - where lower tier leathers could be converted 5 -> 1 into the next up, so 25 of the base leather scrap could be converted into the 3rd tier, or 125 into the 4th tier, etc. It meant that those low end materials were always useful. FFXIV outright has higher level things require some lower level reagents, particularly in Cullinarian (Cooking)
Eve Online also does this. No matter the component, ship hull, etc, you always need some quantity of the very lowest level, starter zone mineral, Veldspar. No matter what you're making, that low end mineral always goes into it, so there's always value to people in getting and selling it on the market because it's always in demand on some level.
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I'm genearally against (a) vendor trash and (b) soul-bound thing.
In the case of vendor trash: It's just pointless. It literally is. All you do is take it to a vendor and sell it. In THEORY, this could be immersive, but in practice, only is when those items have some use. Like why have a gray vendor trash "broken lynx fang" item when you could have a white/common "lynx fang" item that can be used to make basic bone armor/accessories in crafting or can be used in brewing a basic fortitude potion? Players not into those crafting disciplines can sell them to a vendor OR sell/give them to a crafting friend, so people uninterested in using the items see zero net change from the "gray vendor trash" drop instead. For everyone else, it means the random loot you might get has use and value, and has a "presence" in the world.
I've talked about this before - and in my OP here as well - but I think it's this feeling of "presence" in the world that makes a game world feel like a WORLD instead of a dungeon que lobby. The feeling that that item exists outside of just a quest (do other bears not have asses aside from these, and they ONLY have asses if you're on the quest to collect them?!) and that things have a use and value in the world (sort of like the idea of Native Americans using every part of a killed Bison so not to let anything go to waste), even if it's only through melting it down into scrap to use to forge ingots or etc with.
I also have a general disdain for soul-binding stuff. It should be limited as much as possible. I understand wanting other people to grind stuff out, but on the other hand, it's pretty silly that suddenly decides that, not only is it sentient and will it reject all others, but that it only has eyes for you as soon as you swing it in battle against a common household rat.
I essentially disagree with most of the criticism of quests like collect 10 bear butts. No I don't mean from bears that smoke.
Quests like that add interest as opposed to pure grinding and make the world feel alive. They just need to be put in the right places and given a colorable rationale. Such as the traditional small town where crops or kids are being eaten and a visiting adventurer can help out.
They should also avoid the usual stupidity of "I am making dinner for 10 please get me 10 bear ribs". Where you may need to kill 50 bears to get them. Do these developers (in other games) have the remotest clue of how many people *one* bear can feed or how incredibly wasteful it is to kill 50 bears per dinner?
Every bear has ribs - unless you are doing a quest for an absolutely perfect bear body that a taxidermist can do wonderful things with each kill should count unless you have a weapon that disintegrates the poor bears.
I think you guys are missing the point.
I wasn't say there should be no collection quests.
I said there should be very few quests with "quest items" and, when fetch quests exist, they should use regular items in the game world that have other uses outside of just that quest, such as crafting, consumables, and so on.
Which makes more sense, gathering 5 "quest item" plant leaves for a specific quest, or gathering 5 of an actual herb item in the game - which you can collect via herbalism or buy/trade from another player who has? Why should there be this one ultra specific planet leaf that can only be used in this one exact potion that only this one NPC in the entire game knows how to make or has need of? Does that make sense in a lore/immersion perspective?
I submit, in most cases, it does not.
((Which makes more sense, gathering 5 "quest item" plant leaves for a specific quest, or gathering 5 of an actual herb item in the game - which you can collect via herbalism or buy/trade from another player who has? ))
Sorry to disagree but from a gameplay perspective it makes more sense to get items that cannot be traded to other players. It totally trivializes the quest for me to head into Butt Cheeks with 10 preserved bear butts and to knock off the quest in 10 seconds of conversation.
From a realism point of view - some or all of your concern can be addressed by taking a few minutes to design the quest properly. Sally, the shopkeeper in the small town of Butt Cheeks, can simply ask for 10 "Fresh Bear Butts". Only killing a bear near Butt Cheeks will provide one fresh enough - that makes perfect sense. She has no use for freeze-dried bear butts.
I compare it to the kind of thinking Alton Brown espoused in the cooking show "Good eats" regarding Kitchen gadgets/appliances in that there should be few "Uni-taskers". Things should have should have at least more than one purpose. The only uni-tasker in his kitchen was a fire extinguisher.
Nice ideas!
I would also love it, if we could avoid it somehow to get gazillion versions of one crafting item and don't have to use the perfect bear flank, the pristine bear flank and so on with higher ranking recipes.
I get that that poses another problem as higher level players could just ran through lower level zones and kill everything to get fastest what they need. Just letting the mob drop nothing anymore if the player is too high, kills the immersion too. :(
I don't have a problem with collection quest at all, as long as they fit into the story.
Prime example - In EQ, one of the popular fetch quest was in Qeynos. Return Gnoll Fangs. Why does the warriors guild want Gnoll fangs? Because they have been dealing with Gnolls attacking the city and the city guard needs help defending! You go to the gates of the city and literally see Gnolls running into the gates (well, one dumb one) but they are everywhere in the area.
Same thing with Crushbone belts for orcs/elves Faydwer.
If an NPC says "Go kill 10 wolves" but gives you no context to why we need to do this, that's when it's a problem to me.
These are just some of my general thoughts.
I like the way the EQ handled quest items. It had a mix of common items like rat whiskers, bone chips, and bat wings, but it also had lore-specific items. Both types of items would drop regardless if the player had a quest for them or not. This experience helped make quests feel like they were part of the world and not just tasks to be completed. The lore-specific items also prompted exploration and communication within the community. This was before database sites eventually sprung up, but still, it helped promote a connected world environment and questing system.
I also like chain quests that slowly paint a bigger picture of what is happening in the world. One of my favorite quest lines from Classic WoW was The Leaders of the Fang line. This quest chain slowly painted a picture about how a corrupt order of druids was twisting nature, and it ended with you dealing with the problem by killing their leaders.
I don't really mind collection quests as long as they have a context or build-up to provide context. The Leader of the Fang quest is an example of a collection quest that built upon itself to provide context. It's the trivial, mind-numbing, and almost pointless collection quests that irritate me. All I really want is context and to know how and why my actions are important.
I think it would also be interesting to see something like "meta" quests. These quests should involve in-depth lore, bosses, dungeons, puzzles, and other engaging aspects. These quests could be trigged by obtaining certain player tags or completing certain requirements like completing all the quests in an area. These quests should leave the player feeling accomplished, wowed, and leave a lasting impression.